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A Pastoral Letter to MCUSA

Turns out I had some more thoughts on Sunday morning’s shooting. This letter was written in collaboration with some wonderful colleagues and signed by even more wonderful colleagues and was originally posted on the Inclusive Mennonite Pastors web site.

“We are dying, and you are killing us.” These are the words Jay Yoder writes to the Mennonite church as a member of the Mennonite LGBTQIA+1 community in the wake of the shootings at the Pulse Nightclub. Their words point to the truth that no murder happens in a vacuum, even when done by a single person, because inside each murderer is an echo chamber of the religious and cultural discourse that affirms hate.

So far there has not been a response from the leadership of MC USA to the tragedy in Orlando or to Jay’s accusation of the church’s complicity in this violence. (Note: The Moderator and Moderator-Elect of MCUSA published this statement on June 15; Ervin Stutzman, the MCUSA Executive Director, published this statement on June 16.) While it is difficult to find words at such a time, we realize that silence serves to enhance the violence being done to the bodies and spirits of people within the LGBTQIA+ community and people of color. And so we, as Mennonite pastors, choose to not participate in the silence, but to offer these words, however inadequate they may be.

To those who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community, your voices matter, your experiences matter, your presence in the Mennonite church matters. We are deeply grateful that you are part of the Mennonite church. We desire to support you in whatever ways we can. If you reach out to any of us we will seek to be a nurturing, Christ-like presence as we listen to you in your grief and anger. We love you.

To the larger Mennonite church body, we must acknowledge that this hate crime was directed against people who are part of both the Latinx and LGBTQIA+ communities; it is disingenuous to claim that our desire to welcome Hispanic Mennonites requires us to shun LGBTQIA+ Mennonites.

We must do a better job of listening to and believing the testimonies of those within the LGBTQIA+ community who have experienced violence within our churches. If we continue to insist on the unworthiness of those who do not conform to “official” standards of sexual identity and attraction, we must acknowledge the ways in which that message promotes ideologies of hatred and violence. We cannot continue to preach peace in one breath and condemn our LGBTQIA+ siblings in the next.

If we hope to even begin a faithful response to the horror of the Pulse Nightclub shootings, we must listen well, speak in love, and back up our listening and our speech with actions of compassion and justice. As the book of James exhorts us, “faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”

As we attempt to resurrect our faith, let’s consider engaging in the following works: